To help your business create and send effective birthday emails, we’ve created this helpful guide. We’ll cover what, when and how to send the best birthday emails that motivate subscribers to celebrate by buying your product or service.

What to send

Birthdays are synonymous with gift giving, so give your subscribers something they can’t pass up. Typically, birthday emails have a special deal, offer or free gift. Often, these deals can be used online or in-store, and should be easy to redeem.

Here are a few ideas that you can use:

A can’t-resist coupon

Give subscribers a real birthday treat by offering a can’t-resist coupon. For example, Campaign Monitor customer, Birchbox, offers $10 off of a $50 purchase. They sent the email at the beginning of the month and allow the subscriber the entire month to redeem the coupon before it expires.

Mystery savings

Send a mystery coupon to your subscribers on or before their birthday. You can use a tool like Scratch-it to create an offer that enables subscribers to “scratch” a digital card to reveal their 10, 20 or 30% off coupon.

A free gift

Everyone loves freebies on their birthday. Why not give your subscriber a free gift?
Have the birthday boy or girl come to your store to claim a free gift, or provide a coupon code to use online to receive the gift in the mail. The gift can be something small like a laptop sticker, an appetizer or service upgrade. You can require a minimum purchase to claim the free gift if you’d like.

Free shipping or discount

On a subscriber’s birthday, try to clear any obstacle that keeps him or her from placing an order. For example, as a birthday treat, offer to provide free shipping and take care of the sales taxes by discounting the item by 8% (or whatever the sales tax rate is in your area.) It’s a simple gesture that could entice a subscriber to buy.

DSW knows the way to their subscribers wallets is through engaging offers and of course, shoes so this birthday email strikes a perfect chord:

Birthday email best practices

Is it best to send birthday emails on the exact birth date or before? Should you send a follow-up email? If so, when? They’re all great questions, and we’ve got the answers.

Send the offer on the actual birthdate

More than half (55%) of birthday emails are sent on the exact birthdate. About 38% of birthday emails are sent one to three weeks prior to the birthday. A growing trend is also sending an offer at the start of the subscriber’s birthday month to give them plenty of time to take action and to provide you plenty of time to send a few reminders.

Send a reminder

To make sure your subscribers remember to take advantage of their birthday offers, send a reminder email. Reminder emails generate rate increases of at least 20% in open, click-to-delivered, average order value and revenue per email, according to Experian data.

Chandon sent this email out with the subject line, “Birthday Savings End Soon!” a few weeks after I got the initial birthday email.

Use automation

Even the most organized business couldn’t possibly keep track of every subscriber’s birthday and send an email offer on that day. Fortunately, you don’t have to.

Automation turns what could be a tedious, time-consuming job into a few clicks.

Campaign Monitor customers can use automated emails, which are emails that are automatically sent to a subscriber when certain conditions are met. In this case, when the subscriber’s birthday arrives, an email is automatically delivered to his or her inbox.

Jewelry retailer, Monica Vinader, generates an offer to their customers with jewelry suggestions based on past purchases, and a special “treat yourself” message.

See it in action in this video:

Personalize subject lines and messages

When you get a birthday card in the mail, the person sending it personalizes it, right? Of course. That’s what makes the card special. You should do the same thing with your birthday emails. Use a subscriber’s first name in the subject line and inside the email message.

Here’s an example below from Omaha Steaks. The subject line was, “Happy Birthday Kim!” The personalization is in the subject line but could have also have been easily used in the preheader, the body copy, or even the CTA button.

Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened and marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns. Campaign Monitor makes it easy to personalize every email, including birthday emails. Take a look at these instructions to personalize your campaigns.

Create a clear call to action

Every email should have a clear call to action, and birthday emails are no different. Make sure your call to action stands out. Consider using a button like the one above in the Benihana email. Use a color that’s used sparingly for the button color and create an action-oriented call to action for your button. Something like “Claim Your $30 Coupon Now” or “Redeem Your Birthday Gift”, or “Shop Now”.

Keep the message short

The best birthday emails are short and simple. The message should wish the subscriber a happy birthday and explain the treat. There’s no need for long copy.

Here’s a great example from Wine.com. In less than 20 words, the email accomplishes its goal.

Make it festive

It’s a celebration. Birthdays are fun, so make sure your birthday emails have a festive feel to them. In the example above from Wine.com, there’s an image of people celebrating with a toast, and the example below from Topshop uses big, bold letters and a fun design. They also include a promo code (promo code has been excluded from this post).

Use a combination of colorful text and images to make your birthday emails stand out. Use confetti, party streamers, balloons, birthday cake, or pictures of people at a party to liven up your email.

If you need help finding birthday images, check out our list of sites to get amazing images for your emails.

Wrap up

Birthday emails should be part of every brand’s email marketing strategy. By automating the process, you can create and send personalized, revenue-generating emails in a snap.

Really like the idea of birthday emails – they can act as a great reminder to the customer of your brand/services too.

Question – do you think there’s any worth in sending a birthday campaign without having anything to offer? Just a birthday message? Is that recognition from a company to the customer enough? I’m leaning towards no, but would like to hear others’ thoughts on it.

Kim

Hi Jaina,Thanks for reading and commenting. Pure recognition is nice and unexpected and can provide value in the sense of good feelings toward your company from your subscriber. However, the best way to figure out offer vs. no offer would be to consider what your goals are and if applicable, run a test and see which version gets more engagement.

Lisa

I work in an insurance business where we can’t offer something, but we still send a happy birthday email and we get emails back all of the time saying thanks, so it can definitely be worth doing.

Jaina

Thanks for the replies guys – always interesting to see how other people tackle the birthday campaign.

Sanjay Sawant @Firecart

You can send such emails, if you really want to make a strong relationship with your customer. If you think your goals are more important, then you can add some special offers or coupons with some actionable call-to-actions.